With this week's diet of studio entertainment consisting of catching up on missed episodes of AFRO SAMURAI, revisiting MEATBALL MACHINE, and studying the directorial choices made by Yoshiaki Kawajiri between his early work and later films, it's no wonder that I'm sticking with a yōkai theme for this week's AlphaBeasts! entry...O is for Onryō.
The Onryō is an interesting creature. It exists somewhere between yūrei (a Japanese ghost kept from a peaceful afterlife) and yōkai. Because the death delivered to the Onryō was so horrible, it undergoes a powerful transformation, materializing in the physical plane so that it might exact vengeance for its untimely demise...
Traditionally, Onryō are female and victimized by cruel lovers or husbands. The film JU-ON (THE GRUDGE) features a particularly nasty Onryō...and her equally nasty family...
For my interpretation, I kept the traditional visual elements (white kimono, wild black hair, and pale face) and brought in a few supernatural touches of my own. My Onryō is retching arcs of weapon-clutching ectoplasm and is fully prepared to dish out otherworldly revenge.
2 Gibbering Cries:
I've only seen the American version of The Grudge, and that was creepy enough! After seeing that movie, I thought of the shower scene every time I washed my hair for at least a week. I had to keep touching the back of my head to check that nothing was there!
The trailer you posted has more of a disquieting feeling to it. The creatures in the Japanese version look more patient, and that probably helps to build the tension. I've never seen a Japanese horror movie, but I've heard that they're a lot scarier than the American ones.
I once read an article that said differences between J-Horror and American Horror exist along the lines of a cultural relationship with food. A meat-rich diet begets a fear of ripping, tearing, and dismemberment, while a vegetable-rich diet creates a fear of things that linger, watch, and exist where we least expect them.
I've terribly oversimplified the point of the article, but when you consider the loss of cultural nuances and the addition of western elements to American remakes of J-Horror films and the poor response by American audiences to horror films helmed by Japanese directors, it seems like there might be something there worth investigating further.
That said, I love the whole Ju-On/The Grudge series. One of the films remains in rotation here every month.
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